“Who is your friend?” Jared asked, his heart rate rising a little with anticipation.
Ursula looked past him into the brightly lit kitchen. She took the whole scene in—the cramped space, the out-of-date table, the plate of spaghetti. Then she looked at Jared again. “Get your coat if you want. It’s kind of cold.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Jared stepped into the backyard, the stiff frozen grass crunching under his feet. He looked around and didn’t see Ursula.
He walked toward the back of their property to the chain-link fence bordering the neighbor’s yard. Someone emerged from the darkness. It was Ursula. She stood in the neighbor’s yard, her hands dangling at her sides. Jared found the way she stood—hips cocked, chin up—attractive, and he wished he didn’t. Seeing Ursula that way made him feel like a little kid again.
And he thought of Natalie. He really missed Natalie.
“Climb over,” she said. “It’s easy.”
“I know. I’ve done it a million times in my life.”
When they’d first moved in, a family with two sons around his age lived behind them. Jared used to climb the fence whenever they were out in their yard, and the three of them ran around playing football and war and hide-and-seek until the family moved away, the dad having taken a job in Pennsylvania. Jared couldn’t remember if he’d even said good-bye to them. There seemed to be a lot of that going around.
He easily scaled the fence and landed next to Ursula. She didn’t look at him or say anything. She just started walking, heading for the front of the neighbor’s house and the street that ran parallel to Jared’s.
Jared watched the way Ursula’s hips moved as she walked, her jeans fitting her shapely body perfectly. No surprise. She’d have the best of the best. The best-fitting clothes, the most expensive brands.
They reached the next street, and Ursula turned to the left. A black SUV sat at the curb, its parking lights burning in the dark. Ursula walked over and tugged open the passenger-side door.
“Go ahead,” she said, sweeping her arm like a game show hostess.
In the glow of the dome light, Jared saw Bobby Allen.
Jared climbed in. Ursula pulled open the rear door and came inside, a gust of cool air following her. In the faint glow from the dashboard, Bobby looked tired. His eyes were red, his mouth turned down.
“I’m sorry, Bobby.”
Bobby nodded. He took a deep breath, his broad shoulders rising and falling beneath his coat. They were the first words Jared had spoken to Bobby since they’d played soccer together.
The car’s engine hummed. It was warm in the cabin, the soft rush of heat coming out of the vents. Jared loosened the top buttons on his coat, letting the heat dig in against his body. Bobby didn’t look at him. He stared straight ahead, as if something were coming down the street at him. Jared even turned and looked through the windshield, but the horizon was empty and quiet.
“Are you going to ask him?” Ursula said from behind.
Bobby didn’t move when she spoke, but his eyes narrowed just a bit as though her question annoyed him. Jared wanted to know if the two of them were dating, or did Ursula even confine herself to just one boyfriend at a time? He knew a lot of kids at school were like that, even though he’d been content with just the one person in his life. Natalie.
“I want to know what it was like,” Bobby said. “Seeing my old man that way.” He took another deep breath, this one shuddering a little as if he might be about to cry. But no tears came, and Bobby collected himself. “Somebody bashed his fucking head in. It’s a shitty way to die, and I just want to know what you saw.”
Jared hadn’t expected that. His mind raced as he searched for the proper response. “Are you sure—”
“He’s sure,” Ursula said. “We talked about it all day. Just tell him what you saw. You don’t have to pull any punches.”
Jared hesitated. Then he said, “I didn’t see too much. It was dark. He, your dad, was on the floor in the living room. On his back by the TV. I could tell he wasn’t breathing, and . . . there was a pool of blood around his head. I didn’t get close and look. If I’d seen his face clearly, I would have recognized him as your dad. I remember him from when we were kids. But I left. The cops showed me a picture and told me who he was.”
“So you didn’t see his face?”
“Not really. Like I said, it was dark.”
“Could you tell if he suffered?” Bobby asked.
Jared knew what the right thing to say was. “I bet not. With the way he was lying there, and the blood on the floor, he probably got hit pretty hard. He was probably out right away.”
“Did he smell?” Ursula asked.
Jared turned a little, but knew he couldn’t see Ursula since she was sitting right behind him. So he looked at Bobby. “Yeah, it smelled. It smelled pretty bad. I had to put my sweatshirt over my face. You know, when people die . . .”
“They shit themselves,” Ursula said.